Paddy Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House and I thank Senator Doherty for sharing her time with me. I love the Minister's thinking about freight and passenger rail. I concur with Senator Kyne on the western rail corridor. I thank the Minister for his commitment to that. He is one of the first Ministers who has really come out strongly in favour of the western rail corridor. At this point it would be no harm to remember the late Fr. Mícheál Mac Gréil, who passed away quite recently. He was one of the founders of the campaign to bring the western rail corridor to fruition.

I use the train quite frequently and I see a large volume of people using the train now compared with years ago. Whether it is a seven-carriage train or a four-carriage one, it always seems to be full. The problem in Mayo now is not having enough trains and the frequency is not adequate. The service to Galway, Limerick and Cork is every hour. We only have a service every two or three hours. If some trains from Westport and Ballina went to Athlone, passengers could join the Galway train at that stage which has a service every hour. Iarnród Éireann should consider that.

The journey time from Westport to Dublin is hardly any quicker than it was 100 years ago and it should be quicker. There are more than 11 stops on the Westport and Ballina lines to Dublin. If it takes two minutes to stop at each station, that is nearly half an hour in stops. A train coming from Westport or Ballina to Dublin should not have any stops after Athlone. Iarnród Éireann should consider having some trains from the west going to Athlone and joining the Galway service at that stage.